Dennis Wheatley - The Ravishing of Lady Jane Ware

'Hi! Lay off there, 'less you wants a bullet. That's my 'oney.'

Swinging round they saw that a tall, ragged figure had come up behind them and was pointing a musket at them. As the man had spoken in French, it was obvious that he was a deserter; so Roger called back:

'You have no more right to this honey than we have. But I've no wish to quarrel with you. What's your name

'Sergeant Gobbet, Sixth Grenadiers,' the man replied promptly.' 'Oo are you? Sounds from yer lingo as though you was an officer.'

'I am,' said Roger, and gave his name and rank.

The Sergeant grunted. 'So you're one of the bloody gilded Staff, eh? Well, I wouldn't give a cuss if you was a Marshal. We're all equals now. No difference 'tween you an' me if the Ruskies get us. They'd soon settle our 'ash. No difference neither if we freeze ter death in this bleedin' snow. What you got in them panniers?'

'Supplies of more value than this honey. Still, we might have a talk. I take it you're living in what is left of the farmhouse.'

'No. In the barn. It's got a bit of roof on.'

'Very well. Let's go back there.'

Sergeant Gobbet lowered his musket and they accompanied him to the barn. A low fire was burning there, and they squatted round it, gratefully warming their half-frozen hands by the glow of the embers, while the heat thawed out their frost stiffened furs and water from them made little puddles on the floor.

The Sergeant was a big, burly man with a full beard, small, pig like eyes, a receding forehead and a wonderful, flowing moustache. Roger discussed with him their respective aims. The main difference was that, while Roger had a plan for getting out of Russia, the Sergeant had not. He had simply made off, thinking that on his own he would stand a better chance of remaining alive than if he stayed with the Grand Army. Before the opening of the campaign, he had been stationed in Germany for the best part of two years and had picked up a smattering of the language. Knowing that to enter a Russian town in a French uniform was to ask to be set upon and killed, for several days past he had been keeping a look-out for a solitary Russian peasant whom he could shoot and rob of his clothes. Then he had meant to go into a village and hope to pass himself off as a Rhinelander. But no peasant had crossed his path. Half starving, he had reached the farm the previous day, found the honey, and meant to stay there for a few days, building himself up on it.

With a grim chuckle, he admitted that as Roger's uniform had been hidden by his furs, he had taken him and Hipe for Russians and, had either of them been alone, he would by now be dead; but he had not liked to risk shooting as, had they been armed, the survivor might have shot him before he could reload his musket.

Roger then spoke of his project of trying to reach the coast and getting away in a ship. Gobbet objected that, on arriving in Riga or some similar port, they would still be in French uniforms, so would either be killed or sent as slave labour to some camp where, before the winter was out, they would be knouted unmercifully and die of privation. To that Roger replied that to raid an inhabited house to obtain civilian clothes before they neared the end of their journey would be foolish, as a hue and cry after them might be started; but when they did come to the outskirts of a port, they must take that risk and bury their uniforms. He added that both he and Hipe could speak Russian well enough to pass as Ukrainians, and that he had ample money to buy passages in a ship for them; so if only they could come by enough food to keep them going on the way, he had good hopes of his plan succeeding.

The Sergeant's objections having been overcome, he became enthusiastic about the idea, so it was decided to pool their resources and travel together. Roger produced some strips of horseflesh, the fire was made up and twenty minutes later they were chewing the hard, unsavoury meat with as much gusto as if it had been chicken. Gobbet was a garrulous man and, while they ate, he gave them an account of how things had been with the Grand Army when he decided to desert.

'I was with Oudinot's corps "Old Blood and Guts" as we called 'im,' he told them. 'And a cracking good soldier 'e were, too. One what led 'is men in battle an' took good care of 'em other times. Back in the summer 'e got us all these sheepskin coats, like wot I'm wearin'. The weather was that 'ot then we didn't 'alf curse 'im. But come the autumn an' the snow, we was a durn sight better off than the chaps with the other corps.

'Things didn't go too bad until early November, then the Ruskies got atop of us an' pushed us east. Arter the middle o' the month we was down on the Berezina. Some dam' fool Polish General at Borisov ad given away the bridge over the river. But we got it back. Might 'ave made a stand there, too, if only Victor 'ad backed us up. But that red-faced drummer boy's a bad General an' a bad friend. 'E took 'is chaps across the river without a thought of anyone else. But our man, "Old Blood and Guts", 'e waited for the Emperor.

'About the 24th or 26th, wouldn't say which, the days 'as got a bit muddled in me mind, the main army came along an' started ter cross. The town bridge weren't the only one. It were said that General Eble im wot's the chief sapper-'ad 'ad orders ter burn 'is pontoons back at Orcha; but 'e 'adn't, an' 'e got two of 'em across the river 'igher up. All the same, things couldn't 'ave been worse wi'out 'em.

'The 'ole bleedin' Russian army came chargin' up, screamin' blue murder an' dead set ter finish us off. Old Kutuzov an' both 'is pals who'd been out on the wings. Both sides of the river, they were. They flung at us everything they'd got: cavalry/infantry, them bastards of Cossacks on their little ponies, thousands of cannon balls an' Gawd knows that. Davout's boys managed ter clear the far bank, then the crossin' began. Us lot an' the old sweats further along managed ter 'old the Ruskies off, but a 'ole mass of troops panicked. Jus' meant to get over the bloody river at any price an' devil take the 'indmost. There was lots of women among 'em. Yes, an' children they'd 'ad on the march, too, though 'ow they'd managed to keep 'em alive beats me. Any ow, the 'ole lot stampeded like a 'erd of cattle, 'undreds of 'em were tryin' to force their way across the bridges at the same time. Consequence was 'alf of 'em got pushed off the bridge inter the river.

'Gawd, yer never see such 'orrors in yer life. 'Ole divisions panicked. Wouldn't wait fer a chance ter cross by the bridge, but tried ter cross over the ice. The river weren't frozen all that 'ard. It cracked up under their weight, an' there was the poor devils strugglin' in the icy water. Tryin' ter climb on one another's shoulders ter get out, they was. But not a 'ope. Couple of minutes was enough. The freezin' water got 'em in the 'eart. They slipped back an' drowned.

'Then the biggest bridge, the one wot the vehicles was goin' over, gave way. Weight was too much fer it. You jus' can't imagine the nightmare ter be seen then. Screamin' men, women and kids was all mixed up in an 'orrible 'eap wi' the icy water closin' over 'em. We was all bein' shelled cruel by the Ruskies, so all them wot 'adn't got no discipline any longer was frantic ter get across the river. Them be'ind pushed them in front till the bloody river were so full of corpses you could 'a walked near dry-shod over 'em. An' the Ruskie shells blowing' them wot weren't drowned ter bits every minute. Then, ter put the lid on everything, the foot bridge that I an' my pals were about ter cross caught fire.

'That's when I opted out, that was. I says to myself I says, "Baptiste Gobbet, you old sod. You bin in Italy an Egypt an' 'Olland an' Austria an' God knows where else, an' you always got away with it. But this 'ere's too much. Among that mob of 'owling perishers you won't stand no chance. You'd best take care of Number One." Night were fallin' by then, so I jus' slipped away quiet like, an' 'ere I am.'